


Writing From the Theater of the Mind

by Hawkbringer



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Hannibal Alone, Id Fic, M/M, Pining, Self-Denial, Setting - Hannibal's Season 3 Imprisonment, That's it - that's the fic, Writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:47:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23618509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawkbringer/pseuds/Hawkbringer
Summary: Hannibal's imprisonment lasts years, after all, and he has to spend his time somehow... He spends it writing historical-au-self-insert fanfiction of himself and Will Graham. (Crack treated seriously, written april 2016.)
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> originally written 4th 4 2016. un-beta-d. //'s indicate italics.

Hannibal sits, at his desk, or, more precisely, the desk that /is not his/. /Nothing/ is his, /all/ of this was bartered and sold. His /co-operation/ his only currency. What an ugly word. Co-operation. As though he were some mere cog in a machine, able to only play his part. Play /nice/. Get /along/. 

The tapping of his felt-tip pen pauses at the thought. He swallows. 

/Will/. 

He's never gotten along with anybody. Not unless they were /co-operating/ in making his dinner, in one form or another. Not until Will. Not since Will, certainly. There is no one he wants more. An endless parade of 'intellectual' visitors who could never in a /thousand/ sessions grasp the /essence/ of his thoughts the way Will could in only one.

He turns over a new page and begins to write.

\----------

It is the thousandth day of my confinement. Fitting, then, that it should finally come to this. Waiting, waiting... 

He'll be arriving soon. I have to make ready. 

Oh.

I have nothing to serve him.


	2. Chapter 2

Vilhelmas stood, eyes affixed solely on the door before him. He had been promised... The appointed time had come! 

Swinging magnanimously upon its hinges as though opening onto the glory of Heaven itself, the door of which Vilhelmas had studied every square millimeter sank in importance to something lower than dirt, as did his own need to breathe. 

"Hello, William." He held his hands out to his beloved, who was reticent and did not accept. He did, however, consent to cross the room on booted feet, the heavy oak door remaining open behind him, guards from elsewhere in the prison all crowding about, crude weapons at the ready to rescue the man they perceived as a damsel.

Oh, but Will could be compared to /nothing/ so crude! Distressed, yes, agitated, his beloved was, but as he sat smoothly down across the rough-hewn table from his erstwhile benefactor, William's countenance held the look of a man single-mindedly determined to discuss /business/. 

"Hello, Dr. Lecter."

He lets out a faint disappointed sigh. "Are we no longer on a first name basis, William?"

He shakes his head determinedly, making Vilhelmas' heart ache for him all over again. He has /so much/ he must repay William for! Not the /least/ of which is the awakening of his heart's true potential to /feel emotions/. Before William, his life was so very, /very/ grey.

(...)

\--

Hannibal completes their conversation satisfactorily enough, but when it comes to the end of the scene, he finds himself pausing. At a loss. What would Vilhelmas DO after his beloved leaves him? He certainly cannot put a pen to paper, as Hannibal himself is doing now... 

Vilhelmas has almost no luxuries in his annexed cell. To hell with any historical accuracy, Hannibal decided some time ago - Vilhelmas has made an old church his jail, imprisoned himself inside its annex, previously reserved for the holy contemplating God. He has to hand out his chamber pot and food bowl once per day and is allowed no writing tools. No tools of any kind. Perhaps he is naked.

Hannibal touches the tip of his tongue to his pen contemplating himself standing to meet Will again after all this time in nothing but the skin biology forces him to wear. He bites down on the pen as he contemplates Will seeing him without his skin, muscles and fat, red and white gleaming in the dull overhead lights. He would look just like an angel. (Hannibal's fucking weird.) 

He decides Vilhelmas would throw himself into his cot immediately after William closes the door behind him, forcing himself to go to sleep in order to dream of a life with his beloved before circumstances parted them.


	3. Hawkbringer interrupts Hannibal's Fic to bring you this message

New idea! - the arc from Hannibal's perspective involves a lot of conjecture on his part - HE IMAGINES DOLARHYDE SIMPLY APPEARING OUTSIDE THE WALLS WHERE VILHELMAS CAN'T SEE HIM AND LISPING OUT HIS PAIN FOR COMFORT.

We yank dialogue and scene details directly from the episodes, and then after Hannibal's part in the scenes ends, when Will and Francis go off and dance around each other at his instruction and then come back complaining to him when it doesn't work the way either wants it to - because Hannibal didn't tell him how to waltz /harmoniously/, of course he didn't. 

He did that with Tier, and /that/ fight ended /far/ too soon for his liking. Well, he can admit, it was /delicious/ at the time. But he wants more now. A longer game. Longer odds. So many pieces in play. 

And he comes to see, as he waits for news of Will's recovery, after the news of the house fire, that this whole time, he hasn't been playing against /Will/, to get him to /lose/. This whole time, he has been playing /fate/... And Will is Lady Luck's king. His /prize/. All the pieces think they move /themselves/, you know. Unless they are particularly religious little pawns.

And then Hannibal re-writes it. He puts William close enough to touch him, which he does on numerous occasions. Hannibal lets Vilhelmas cry. Vilhelmas is so much safer, /truly/ unobserved. Hannibal can never let his guard down. He doesn't even have the distraction of sex with Bedelia. Long practice allows him to suppress the instinctive twitch of his member at the idea of perhaps masturbating to relieve some of the worry Will has left him with.

(Like, at heart, or at least in his /stories/, Hannibal/Vilhelmas is a completely soft-hearted little cannibal, doing God's work, culling the rude. Hannibal toys with the idea of making Vilhelmas' unspecified previous crimes religiously-motivated in nature. Decides against it to maintain a higher degree of self-identification with the character. Decides his crimes were random, meaningless, and attained a higher degree of artistry with William to inspire him. Vilhelmas' William is ambivalent about his role in this, the extraordinary, grotesque ways he 'inspired' Vilhelmas to kill and display his victims.)

He yearns anew for the freedom he allowed Will to take from him. He has always thought of himself as a cultured, refined man, but it seems, he smiles to himself, folding his hands behind his head to stem the urge, confinement and boredom can make a simplistic hedonist of anyone. Just the luxury of not being watched for a /few/ minutes, he fantasized, chuckling to himself at how far his standards have fallen. If he could have /Will/ unsupervised for just a few minutes... He inhales purposefully, settling his pulse. ...On /his/ side of the glass. He /smells/ so close... Their hands could touch... Faces overlapping in the glass. Hannibal shifts the grip of his hands behind his head and begins doing sit-ups to distract the eye. For 30 minutes, as he exercises, he thinks about Will's hands.


	4. Chapter 3

By the time the finale rolls around, Hannibal has written himself into a corner. 

Reading over his drafts of William's and Vilhelmas' previous conversations, once the interloper had succumbed and the superfluous wife having voluntarily removed herself from the picture, William being tended to by the priests with holy water and bloodletting and what will be a successful series of candlelight vigils... What will his star-crossed pair /do/? Vilhelmas can beg for /nothing/. The only way he will see his William (his Beatrice) is if he decides to call upon him once his recovery is complete. 

Hannibal's fingers tighten on his pen. Vilhelmas will not have to wait 8 whole months for /his/ shy boy to work up the nerve. William will limp to his cell, shout for the guards to open it, and /then/ what? He'd enter, pale and gaunt from the blood-drainings, mouth dry from it, lips tacky. 

He'd tell the guards to shut the door, to give them privacy and /then/ what? Would William slap Vilhelmas? He would certainly come close. He would walk right up to him, perhaps kicking over a bowl of food or shit in the meantime - even this /basic/ distinction does not matter, does not occur to either of them because fate is in the process of writing itself back together, things are going to happen the /right/ way this time, these two are going to /get/ their happy ending... Except Hannibal can't put his finger on what that is supposed to /be/. 

William would come close, he would kick over a completely unimportant bowl, he would put his hands on Vilhelmas' shoulders, fingers tight with desperation, knuckles a dangerous, sickly white, and he would haul him close, and Vilhelmas would hold him upright as he stumbled, always supporting him, always... 

Hannibal's eyes slip closed without his notice.

Vilhelmas' head drops forward on his neck, breathing in the /scent/ of him, a memory no art form can mimic. William's hand slides to the back of his beloved's head, cradling it. He whispers indefinable nothings above his head, then pulls him up to look him in the eyes. William's thumbs stroke over Vilhelmas' cheeks and Vilhelmas wants nothing more than to be /closer/. 

"How do I get inside of you without sucking away the lifeblood from your body as your /doctors/ have?" William smiles at him and takes one of Vilhelmas' hands in his. He guides the doctor's fingers to his lips and mouths over them, "Open me." And Vilhelmas /does/. 

Once William's lips have stretched around 4 of Vilhelm's fingers in his dream-world, Hannibal's eyes snap open, still feeling his phantom-Will's moan of pleasure vibrating down his arm. It's decided then. When Will eventually comes to visit Hannibal again, /and he will, Hannibal assures himself/, Hannibal will be ready for Will to open him... In whatever way he pleases.


End file.
